Ask the Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Answered Questions (10)
Paolo Bacigalupi
It's really a battle to find time to write, especially when the whole world is coming up with reasons to distract you. Friends, spouses, children, tv, the internet, jobs, sleep, all want your time too, and so it means that you have to be pretty serious and relentless about carving out and defending writing time.
In a lot of ways, it's a selfish act, to decide that you're going to go away, alone, and create something, and ignore everything else around you.
When I was first starting out I had a full-time job, and so I would write on the weekends. I designated Saturday as a workday, where I would go to a coffee shop and write, instead of spending time with friends or my girlfriend. I gave up a part of my social life, essentially, so that I could have the time. In addition, I also started getting up half an hour earlier on weekdays in order to get a little writing in before I went to work. So I gave up some sleep, too.
Later, as I got more serious about writing, and started thinking that it was really what I wanted to do with my life, I quit my job, and then used up all my savings writing my first novel. It was foolish, but I was convinced that everything would work out. I did write the novel successfully, but it took much longer than I expected, and in the end, no editors would buy it. By that time I was broke, so I had to go back to work. That became a pattern for me: whenever I ran out of money, I would go get another job, earn up a little bit of a war chest, and then I'd quit again to write another novel.
I was always pretty conservative with my money: I didn't really spend it on booze, or cable tv, or anything, really, and so if I kept expenses to a bare minimum, that gave me some flexibility in choosing my jobs. I always chose my work with an eye toward how much writing it might finance, and how much writing time it would eat up, and I always saw my other expenses as the things that would eat away at my writing war chest, and therefore my writing time. I was lucky because as the years passed, and got married, my wife didn't mind living a pretty basic life, and she was amazingly supportive. I ended up writing four novels that didn't sell, and I failed for over ten years, before I finally started to have some success.
Looking back, I'd say that if you want to find time to write, you have to set that time first. It doesn't really matter if all you can grab is half an hour a day, but you have to designate it, and use it, and defend it from encroachment. It has to be clear in your mind that this is your writing time.
Over time, as you use that time and defend it, it becomes a habit, and you adjust to being a writer, and all the people around you also adjust as well.
I hear a lot of people say they want to be writers. The writers I know who have become successful were all people who found some way to get the work done, regardless of whatever else was pressing in on their lives. It's not easy, for sure.
In a lot of ways, it's a selfish act, to decide that you're going to go away, alone, and create something, and ignore everything else around you.
When I was first starting out I had a full-time job, and so I would write on the weekends. I designated Saturday as a workday, where I would go to a coffee shop and write, instead of spending time with friends or my girlfriend. I gave up a part of my social life, essentially, so that I could have the time. In addition, I also started getting up half an hour earlier on weekdays in order to get a little writing in before I went to work. So I gave up some sleep, too.
Later, as I got more serious about writing, and started thinking that it was really what I wanted to do with my life, I quit my job, and then used up all my savings writing my first novel. It was foolish, but I was convinced that everything would work out. I did write the novel successfully, but it took much longer than I expected, and in the end, no editors would buy it. By that time I was broke, so I had to go back to work. That became a pattern for me: whenever I ran out of money, I would go get another job, earn up a little bit of a war chest, and then I'd quit again to write another novel.
I was always pretty conservative with my money: I didn't really spend it on booze, or cable tv, or anything, really, and so if I kept expenses to a bare minimum, that gave me some flexibility in choosing my jobs. I always chose my work with an eye toward how much writing it might finance, and how much writing time it would eat up, and I always saw my other expenses as the things that would eat away at my writing war chest, and therefore my writing time. I was lucky because as the years passed, and got married, my wife didn't mind living a pretty basic life, and she was amazingly supportive. I ended up writing four novels that didn't sell, and I failed for over ten years, before I finally started to have some success.
Looking back, I'd say that if you want to find time to write, you have to set that time first. It doesn't really matter if all you can grab is half an hour a day, but you have to designate it, and use it, and defend it from encroachment. It has to be clear in your mind that this is your writing time.
Over time, as you use that time and defend it, it becomes a habit, and you adjust to being a writer, and all the people around you also adjust as well.
I hear a lot of people say they want to be writers. The writers I know who have become successful were all people who found some way to get the work done, regardless of whatever else was pressing in on their lives. It's not easy, for sure.
Paolo Bacigalupi
I do actually get emotionally affected by the stories I write; it's one of the ways I know that a story is working. If I feel something as I'm writing it, and later as I re-read it, I have more confidence that the story will evoke those emotions in other people as well.
Some of that it really useful, but it also can take a toll on me, so I'll often work on different projects, or move back and forth between projects, so that I can have some time to get away from those stories that are too overwhelming to spend months and months inside.
When I wrote THE WINDUP GIRL, which was set in an incredibly broken world, I also worked on SHIP BREAKER, which was more of an adventure story. When I was working on THE DROWNED CITIES, which was particularly intense because the world was so brutal and the characters (who were child soldiers) were going through so much, I also wrote ZOMBIE BASEBALL BEATDOWN, so I could laugh, and have fun, and enjoy being in a world where I knew all my characters were going to be okay in the end.
I find that if I balance those experiences out, I feel better about writing and about creating more stories.
Some of that it really useful, but it also can take a toll on me, so I'll often work on different projects, or move back and forth between projects, so that I can have some time to get away from those stories that are too overwhelming to spend months and months inside.
When I wrote THE WINDUP GIRL, which was set in an incredibly broken world, I also worked on SHIP BREAKER, which was more of an adventure story. When I was working on THE DROWNED CITIES, which was particularly intense because the world was so brutal and the characters (who were child soldiers) were going through so much, I also wrote ZOMBIE BASEBALL BEATDOWN, so I could laugh, and have fun, and enjoy being in a world where I knew all my characters were going to be okay in the end.
I find that if I balance those experiences out, I feel better about writing and about creating more stories.
Paolo Bacigalupi
Yes. He'll be in my next novel set in the Ship Breaker universe, tentatively titled SEASCAPE.
Paolo Bacigalupi
When I control the rights, and there aren't any road blocks to doing so, yes. I did that with my novella "The Alchemist." and will probably do it again, when I release the next novella set in that fantasy world. But with my novels, they're often tied up with other agreements with my publishers, and so it's more difficult. Short Answer: Yes, I hope to. Long answer: it's complicated, and there are a lot of people who sometimes need convincing.
Paolo Bacigalupi
It was signed stock that was shipped. I actually visited this massive warehouse outside of Indianapolis, and over the course of a day and half I signed 3000 copies of THE DROWNED CITIES, that were then distributed to B&N's across the country. My hand was tired afterward. :)
Paolo Bacigalupi
I haven't really. GMO's, much like any technology, are simply a reflection of us. Overall, I think something like Golden Rice is more of a PR wedge to drive acceptance for other patented, modified, profit-oriented seeds in the future. Some of those are very likely to be useful or beneficial in some way.
But I'll add a caveat that whoever controls these technologies will have specific agendas of their own. Monsanto and Syngenta, aren't, at root, in the business of feeding people; they're in the business of maximizing profits. How they go about that in the future may not be in humanity's best interest. I tend to be cynical about profit-driven companies that beat the drum of human relief, while also being the same companies that developed the Terminator gene.
At root, I think that any given technology (think nuclear power, gunpowder, the written word...) has the potential to improve our lives, wound it, and also to create unexpected accidents. It's not the technology that's the problem, it's us, the users. However angelic or demonic, or thoughtful or thoughtless we happen to be is then amplified by our technologies.
I continue to think that GMO's represent a complexity that we don't yet fully comprehend, so I expect that there will be some surprises that come out of them.
But I'll add a caveat that whoever controls these technologies will have specific agendas of their own. Monsanto and Syngenta, aren't, at root, in the business of feeding people; they're in the business of maximizing profits. How they go about that in the future may not be in humanity's best interest. I tend to be cynical about profit-driven companies that beat the drum of human relief, while also being the same companies that developed the Terminator gene.
At root, I think that any given technology (think nuclear power, gunpowder, the written word...) has the potential to improve our lives, wound it, and also to create unexpected accidents. It's not the technology that's the problem, it's us, the users. However angelic or demonic, or thoughtful or thoughtless we happen to be is then amplified by our technologies.
I continue to think that GMO's represent a complexity that we don't yet fully comprehend, so I expect that there will be some surprises that come out of them.
Paolo Bacigalupi
Read "The Drowned Cities." :D
Paolo Bacigalupi
Probably the most horrifying thing to me is that almost ten years ago, when I wrote "The Tamarisk Hunter," it was already apparent that water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell were dropping. We've been able to see our vulnerability to water scarcity to climate change for quite a long time, and yet we've avoided facing it. At this point, Lake Mead is hitting record lows.
Now that the California drought is happening, people are finally paying attention to these kinds of vulnerabilities, but the scary thing to me is that we tend to pay attention to our dangers only when they're already heavy upon us.
Now that the California drought is happening, people are finally paying attention to these kinds of vulnerabilities, but the scary thing to me is that we tend to pay attention to our dangers only when they're already heavy upon us.
Paolo Bacigalupi
Thank you! I love writing short stories, and often they're the place where I test out ideas that eventually become novels. "The Tamarisk Hunter" eventually morphed into THE WATER KNIFE, just as "The Calorie Man" and "Yellow Card Man" eventually morphed into THE WINDUP GIRL. So yes, I do continue to write them. Recently I've written "Moriable's Children" which appeared in the collection MONSTROUS AFFECTIONS, and also two stories set in the Water Knife universe - "Shooting the Apocalypse" which appears in Hugh Howey's END IS NIGH anthology, and "A Hot Day's Night," which recently appeared in the news magazine High Country News. https://www.hcn.org/issues/47.1/a-hot....
Now that THE WATER KNIFE is finished, I'm hoping to do several other short stories, as I'm looking to experiment again, and start scoping out some new ideas.
Now that THE WATER KNIFE is finished, I'm hoping to do several other short stories, as I'm looking to experiment again, and start scoping out some new ideas.
Paolo Bacigalupi
At some point, I probably will go back to it. But if I do, it won't be to follow Emiko, as I feel like I've taken her story as far as I can. Most likely, I would shift focus to India. I've always wondered what mischief characters like Richard Carlyle, Tan Hock Seng, and Mai might get up to. And after exploring a country like Thailand, which has resisted the calorie companies, I think I'd like to explore a country that has instead completely been taken over by them. It's something I continue to mull.
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